


Ghosts

by NoxNoctua



Series: Halloween 2020 [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 13 days of probably a lot of angst, Death, First Person, Funeral, M/M, ambiguous if canon divergence or human AU, racket's halloween prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxNoctua/pseuds/NoxNoctua
Summary: Ghosts are memories are regrets are the paint on the wall and the earth at our feet.----For RacketGhost's 13 Days of Halloween prompts. This piece is first-person.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Halloween 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992094
Comments: 21
Kudos: 26
Collections: Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I was heavily inspired by my binge-watching of Haunting of Hill House and a bottle of wine.
> 
> Thank you [Call](https://call-of-the-ocean.tumblr.com/) for lending your eyes to me for this piece! Thank you to Racket for the [prompt](https://racketghost.tumblr.com/post/628733325157302272) that inspired this work!

I remember the way that your skin felt; rough fingers across the imperfect surface of my skin. The weight of your gaze was impossible to breathe under and the cost of your affection was well beyond my means. Whatever image of me you had created couldn’t possibly be close to truth, as flawed as I was, but none of that mattered to you. You had always seen through it, to the core of me. It was beyond all natural law that your eyes could be both brown and gold.

I remember our wedding day. You were handsome in black and white (a dash of red, you cheeky bastard.) You held out your hand, smiled at me, and even behind those dark lenses I could see the happy creases at the corner of your eyes. Only a few had been in attendance to bear witness to our union. In front of them we had cracked open our ribs, exchanged the pure burning energy of our beating hearts, cried, and became one.

I remember the key that we had cupped in both our hands, the predictability of its size and scale. Though it was light, the potential of it was infinitesimal, a mass far greater than its own gravity. Each tumbler pushed away is a door, and the turning of the knob is a decision to enter, and stepping across the threshold is a promise. A promise to let you sleep the mornings in, a promise to fetch you coffee, a promise to not complain  _ too much _ when the turns you took on the road felt just a little too sharp. A promise to continue on through all the permutations of our love.

Do you remember that key too? I remember my fingers smelling like metal as I nervously braced my chin in my hand, watched you swing open the door. The place had smelled like dust and mildew but it looked like you and I.

Oh my — and I must laugh at this — do you remember the sorry heap of earth that made the garden? It was tilled, obviously, but the gnarled remains of efforts past had tickled us both. When you returned to it the following morning, I had watched you from the kitchen. Watched the way your eyes darted across the landscape and read the story of its past and seen the opportunity of its future.

I remember your smell after you spent long hours with the earth. Somehow, someway you’d always possessed the spiced smell of cinnamon and the fire of lapsong. You were a constant energy, a presence of flame from which I took heat and strength. An optimism that I would be afraid to acknowledge for fear of collapse. Sometimes you’d pull me into you, press your face into my hair, and whisper small assurances like: “This is ours, angel. Forever and always.”

That young boy down the street, son of the Dowlings, was particularly fond of you, you’ll recall. I would sit on the porch, rock back in my chair, and watch you ruffle his hair. You were always so hesitant to show affection to others, or at least to let anyone see you do it. I’d always wanted to ask you what your fear was, what risk you put yourself at in sharing that part of yourself. Was I a bit too ignorant to understand it without asking?

I used to muse on the virtue of honesty in a partnership, the need for a deep transparency between individuals, how it had made me feel closer to you and our union somehow more complete. But individuals are meant to have secrets, are meant to have fears and insecurities and small joys that they keep only for themselves. 

In retrospect, the way we would tiptoe around some subjects will always cause me a bit of grief. Though we were prone to bickering, true disagreements about the general direction of things were few. It was only those hidden subjects, those tender anxieties that seemed to develop sharp-edged armor. We could circle endlessly about them, often did, until we’d hit the drain and the basin of unsaid things would overflow.

When you slammed the door shut, it had sent a great tremor through the walls. The Bentley roared to life like some distant wild animal. I hadn’t meant to be bidden to the task of sweeping up broken glass, but I had been so overwhelmed by the volume of our voices that it had slipped clean from my fingers and shattered at my feet. What had the argument been about? Do you remember?

In the grand and finite scheme of our lives, I do not.

Much later, I’ll remember the way you had looked down on me (you had taken off your glasses and your eyes were, as I suspected, blown wide.) I remember the cool wet of your tears. I remember the sanitized smell of myself, replacing the things that once made up the innards of my body. I remember how tense my hands had felt, folded over themselves so that I might look at peace, as if only at rest. I remember how the make-up had felt caked onto my face.

Your hand resting across my cheek was the last warm thing I ever felt. And I will never forget it.

**Author's Note:**

> This was _especially_ inspired by episode 6 of Hill House. Beginning of the End Movement IV on repeat also did a lot of the heavy lifting here.
> 
> Come keep me company on [Tumblr](https://noxiraphale.tumblr.com/)!! I love doing a screm about Good Omens and Sailor Moon and writing and other things.


End file.
